Care & Treatment
Laryngology
What treatments do the laryngologists at Stanford offer?
- Evaluation for and identifying the cause of hoarseness, airway and swallowing disorders.
- Care for the professional voice.
- Multidisciplinary management of voice disorders and laryngeal cancer.
- Referrals for voice therapy or swallow therapy with a speech language pathologist when appropriate.
What are some symptoms I should bring to a laryngologist?
- Change in voice including hoarseness, breathy voice, decreased loudness, loss of range, voice breaks, and vocal tremor.
- Pain with talking or singing
- Difficulty swallowing such as choking while eating or drinking, regurgitation of food, or food getting stuck in the throat when swallowing.
- Pain with swallowing
- Persistent throat pain
- Difficulty breathing or noisy breathing
- Chronic cough
- Cancer of the throat
What are some problems commonly diagnosed and treated by the Stanford laryngologists?
Airway Stenosis
- Glottic Stenosis
- Subglottic Stenosis
- Supraglottic Stenosis
- Tracheal Stenosis
Disorders of the Esophagus
- Cricopharyngeal Dysfunction
- Esophageal stenosis
- Radiation-related Swallowing Disorders
- Zenker's Diverticulum
Neurologic Disorders
- ALS
- Parkinson's Disease
- Stroke
Vocal Fold (Vocal Cord) Lesions
- Cancer of the Larynx
- Cysts
- Granulomas
- Laryngitis
- Leukoplakia
- Nodules
- Papilloma
- Varices (Enlarged Blood Vessels)
- Vocal Fold Hemorrhage
- Vocal Fold Scarring
Other Voice Disorders
- Age-related Voice Changes
- Chronic Cough
- Laryngopharyngeal Reflux
- Laryngospasm
- Paradoxical Vocal Fold Motion
- Scarring and narrowing of the vocal folds and airway
- Spasmodic Dysphonia
- Vocal Fold Paresis/Paralysis
What procedures are available?
Procedures in our Clinic
- In-office vocal fold injection augmentation for paralysis, paresis or bowing
- Botox injections for selected laryngeal diseases such as spasmodic dysphonia
- Transnasal esophagoscopy
- Laser treatment of papillomas
- Laser treatment of vocal fold lesions
- In-office steroid injections of some laryngeal lesions or scarring
- In-office laryngeal biopsy
- Flexible Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing
Procedures in the Hospital
- Phonomicrosurgery for vocal fold lesions requiring surgical treatment
- Conservative surgery for laryngeal cancer: We offer endoscopic treatment for early stage disease with and without laser and larynx-preserving open partial laryngectomy for some later stage disease.
- Arytenoid repositioning surgery for vocal fold paralysis
- Medialization thyroplasty for vocal fold paralysis
- Reinnervation of the paralyzed vocal fold
- Dilation of airway stenosis
- Laryngotracheal reconstruction
- Tracheal resection
- Cricotracheal resection
- Endoscopic treatment of Zenker’s diverticulum
- Transcervical treatment of Zenker’s diverticulum
- Esophageal dilation
- Endoscopic cricopharyngeal myotomy
- Transcervical cricopharyngeal myotomy
- Selective Laryngeal Adductor Dennervation and Reinnervation – The Berke Procedure for Spasmodic Dysphonia
- Placement of tracheoesophageal puncture (TEP) and prosthesis for tracheoesophageal speech after laryngectomy